by Skylar Finn
“No, no,” I said. “I don’t have time. I’m looking for someone.”
The blond guy glanced up and down the hall. His friends had paused awkwardly near the door to the billiards room, waiting for him.
“Why don’t you call them?” he suggested. “I doubt you’re going to have much luck wandering around. White Oak is huge.”
“She’s not answering her phone,” I grumbled. “I don’t suppose any of you have seen a gorgeous leggy redhead anywhere around, have you?”
“I wish!” called one of the blond guy’s friends.
“Shut up, Chris,” another one said, smacking the first guy’s chest. He was tall with muddy brown hair, but his golden eyes made up for his haze of beige complexion. “Does she have a freckle under one of her eyes?”
I perked up. “Yes.”
The man nodded. “I’ve seen her around a couple times. Last time was in the cigar lounge.”
Chris puffed out his chest. “We can take you there. And then maybe we can all go for drinks.”
“No, thank you,” I said.
“Oh, come on.” He separated himself from his friends, approaching me with a swagger in his step that was meant to be attractive but really just felt predatory. “Live a little.”
“Back off, dude,” said the blond guy.
“Do you know who she is?” Chris whispered. “She was all over the news this morning.”
“You watch the news?” the golden-eyed guy asked sarcastically.
“Shut up, Max,” Chris said. Apparently, this group of guys liked to tell each other that. Chris tried to slip his arm around me. “Come on, Madame Lucia. One drink. You can bring your friend and everything. She sounds hot.”
I pushed him away, but I wasn’t strong enough to keep him off for long. “Get off.”
“Let me help you,” he insisted, threading his arm through mine.
“I said get off!”
Chris attempted to twine his hands around my waist, but the blond guy stepped in. They stood nose to nose, just inches apart, in a silent challenge. Behind them, Max’s hands balled into fists.
“Gentlemen!”
The sharp voice made them all jump. Chris darted away from me, putting several paces between us in a matter of seconds as the owner of the voice approached us. It was Gina, the older woman I’d met on the bird lookout. She wore her usual hiking outfit: a puffy forest green jacket, tan snow pants, and heavy-duty boots that would’ve been handy in weathering the snowstorm a few days ago. She held her hiking poles in one hand, the points of which dug into the carpet. Her outfit and demeanor didn’t quite match up with the rest of White Oak’s bland extravagant wealth, but it worked to her advantage.
“How swell of you to look after my friend,” Gina said. She stabbed her hiking pole right near Chris’s foot, nicking the edge of his shoe. He jumped back. “But I’ll take it from here. Adios, boys.”
“But—” Chris protested.
Gina glared at him. Max and the blond guy grabbed Chris by his overworked biceps.
“Come on, you idiot,” Max said.
“I told you we shouldn’t have invited him,” the blond guy muttered as they ferreted their rude friend away. He looked over his shoulder at me and Gina. “Sorry about him. Hope you feel better!”
I waved weakly. At least they weren’t all jerks. Gina handed me the pair of hiking poles.
“Here,” she said, helping me curl my fingers around each handle. “Use these. What happened to you anyway? You look like you’re about to drop dead.”
“I feel like it,” I said. “Did you catch the news this morning?”
Gina frowned as I attempted to balance my weight on the poles. They wobbled beneath me. “I don’t watch the news much. It’s depressing. Why?”
Another group of teenagers, laughing as they passed the opposite direction, paused to stare at me. One of them called out, “Yo, Madame Lucia! That shit you pulled at King and Queens was fire. Literally.”
The group burst out laughing, and a few of them took selfies with me looking sickly in the background before they went on their way. Gina stared after them.
“That’s why,” I explained. “It’s a long story.”
She patted my back. “Why don’t you tell me all about it? I was going to go for a night hike, but you look like you could use a cup of tea.”
“No, it’s fine—”
Yet another holler came my way. “Madame Lucia! Can you contact my dead grandmother for me?”
“That’s enough.” With a soft hand, Gina led me through the recreational hallway to another wing of suites on the first floor. “Let’s get you out of the public eye.”
Gina’s room wasn’t far. It was situated on the other end of White Oak’s indoor strip of shops and restaurants, similar to an international airport in a wealthy area. We walked past designer stores and hipster bars, taking in the fancy clothes on display in the windows as well as the enticing smells of gastro burgers and truffle fries. It was dinnertime already. I’d slept through most of the day.
“Here we go,” Gina said, letting me rest as she dug through her waist pack to find her room key. She swiped it with an air of practiced familiarity in the gesture then held the door open for me to go inside. “Home sweet home. Temporarily at least.”
Gina’s suite was homier than most. The white couches were draped in handmade crocheted blankets. The pictures on the walls weren’t generic landscape paintings of Crimson Basin during each season of the year, but rather hand-drawn sketches of different bird species, as well as a few abstract portraits. Gina’s in-suite kitchen—smaller than the one in my suite upstairs but just as efficient—was stocked with her own glassware and groceries. She retrieved two mugs from the pantry, set a pot of water boiling, and brought down a selection of tea.
“Chamomile, turmeric, or lemon?” she asked, shaking the jars so that the loose leaves danced around like confetti inside. “I have a few more, but they’re bagged.”
“Turmeric,” I decided. “It’s anti-inflammatory, right?”
“Great choice.” She spooned the tea leaves into a diffuser. “Take a seat. Make yourself comfortable. Have you studied Eastern medicine before?”
“Huh?”
She held up the tea. “You knew about turmeric.”
“It’s a fad thing now,” I said, sitting down on the closest sofa and leaning my head into my hands. “Everyone swears by turmeric coffee.”
“And you?”
“I think it tastes disgusting.”
Gina laughed. “I’ll put a lot of honey in yours.”
“Bless you.” I sank into the fluffy sofa. It was much softer than the brand-new ones in my suite, as if it had seen more use. “I hope your stay at White Oak has been going better than mine.”
“Wanna fill me in?”
I gave her the rundown on what had happened over the last couple of weeks, starting at the very beginning, when Oliver Watson contacted me to investigate the paranormal sources around Riley and King and Queens. I told her almost everything but censored the most unsavory details of the story. She didn’t need to know how many bodies I’d seen in such a short amount of time. It felt good to get everything off my chest. Not even Earl the therapist had heard about some of these details, despite the promise of doctor-patient confidentiality. There was something soothing about Gina. First off, she never interrupted me. She listened with practiced patience, tending to the tea kettle and warming up leftover scones as I talked her ear off. She waited until I wrapped up the story to speak.
“Wow,” she said. “That is a lot to unpack.”
“I know.”
She poured my tea and offered the lemon scone. It was the first thing all day—other than the plain chicken soup—that I really wanted to eat. I smeared a dollop of jam across the top and went to town.
“It’s odd, isn’t it?” she said, buttering her own scone. “That King and Queens burned down a second time. It’s like that place is prone to fire. Are you sure Oliver Watson didn�
�t make it out?”
“Not technically.” I breathed into my mug, and turmeric-scented steam moistened my cheeks. “The rescue team never found his body, but I saw his clothes catch fire. I don’t think he could’ve survived that. Why?”
“No reason,” she said. “It’s just that the Watsons are the reason Crimson Basin is such a popular destination to begin with. Nick Porter would’ve never had this success with White Oak if King and Queens hadn’t paved the way. Even if that resort is outdated now, it used to be quite the place.”
“Did you know it?” I asked.
“Yes, I stayed there quite often at the height of its prime,” Gina said. “That was when the community considered Richard and Stella Watson their own personal god and goddess. People around here practically worshipped them. King and Queens was full of elite blue bloods trying to get their attention.”
“But you weren’t one of them?”
“No, no, no,” she said hastily. “I stayed there because at the time it was the only resort in the area. I was always in one of the rooms near the boiler. It was tiny and cramped.”
I set my tea cup on the coffee table without looking. It rattled and almost tipped over. I had accidentally set it on top of a gold chain. Carefully, I lifted the cup and pulled the chain free. Attached to the other end was a small locket with the letter “N” engraved on it. It dangled between us, swinging like a clock pendulum that ticked off the seconds.
“Sorry, I didn’t see it there,” I said, offering the locket to Gina. “It looks expensive.”
She held out her palm to accept it, and the gold chain coiled against her skin like a tiny snake. “It was.”
“What does the N stand for?”
“My son’s name,” Gina said, stroking the letter tenderly. “But he’s been gone for a long time.”
My whole body seemed to tighten around my heart. Gina had lost a child. I had lost a parent. No wonder we had bonded so easily.
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
She smiled weakly. “I keep the locket as a reminder of what I lost. If you’ll excuse me, I should put this in a safer place.”
As she disappeared into the bedroom, I reached for another bite of my scone. It was deliciously crumbly, and it settled my fragile stomach. The tea helped too. I took another sip, but when Stella appeared out of nowhere two feet from my face, I nearly spilled the entire mug on the white sofa. My heart took off as adrenaline rushed through me.
“Christ, Stella! You’ll kill me if you keep doing that.”
“Are you insane?” the ghost hissed, looming over me in her usual red dress and ridiculous heels. “What are you doing here?”
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m drinking tea.”
“You absolute fool,” Stella said. “Get up. Get up.”
The command was followed by a sharp stab of energy to the head. With the headache from earlier, it couldn’t have hurt worse.
“Stella, stop!” My voice was all air, a desperate whisper from my windpipe that had no help from my actual vocal chords. I hoped Gina couldn’t hear my distress from the next room over. “Please stop.”
“Then get up and leave,” Stella whispered in my ear, chilling the air around me to a degree that should’ve been reserved for the slopes. “You shouldn’t be here. Don’t trust her. Don’t tell her anything.”
Stella vanished as quickly as she’d come, just as Gina emerged from the bedroom. The older woman wiped a tear from her cheek. She was the only person Stella could’ve been talking about, but I couldn’t fathom why Gina would be any kind of dangerous. Nevertheless, Stella was still manipulating my energy. I could feel her essence yanking on all of my muscles, pulling me toward the door. The longer I resisted, the worse it ached.
“I should get going,” I said, taking our used plates over to the kitchen sink to be washed. “Thank you for everything, Gina. I feel much better.”
Gina peeked into my mug. “You didn’t finish your tea.”
I faked an apologetic smile. “I told you turmeric wasn’t my thing, no matter how healing it’s supposed to be. See you around?”
Gina smiled and squeezed my shoulder in what was meant to be a reassuring gesture, but with Stella’s warning in my head, I couldn’t help but feel threatened instead.
“I certainly hope so,” Gina said.
6
In the hallway outside Gina’s suite, I caught a glimpse of Stella amongst the bustling crowds. The evening at White Oak was in full swing, but while the guests were all enjoying their dinner, drinks, and shopping, I was trying to catch a ghost’s attention without being too obvious. Stella was easily visible amongst the throng. Her outdated crimson dress stuck out, too bright and padded to blend in with the sleek designer outfits of White Oak’s finest. I wove through the crowd, working my way through the long corridor with practiced caution. Gina’s tea, though disgusting in flavor, had helped ease some of the overall discomfort I’d been feeling all day, but one good push from an overenthusiastic guest could push me over. I worked my way toward Stella, who for some reason lingered at the other end of the shopping corridor instead of meeting me where I was, but as soon as I got close enough to speak to her, she frowned and disappeared.
“Wait!” I called. My voice cracked. It was busy enough in the corridor that no one noticed my plea to no one. A few curious heads turned in my direction, but only one of them noticed I was Madame Lucia. Thankfully, the crowd swept her along before she could approach me.
Stella reappeared farther on, near the lobby. I followed along, but she continued her random disappearing act every time I made it within fifty feet of her. Like a sprite, she poofed in and out of existence, leaving behind a wispy essence that only I could see every time she did it. Eventually, I gave up chasing her. When she lured me toward White Oak’s quiet room, I ignored the hint and veered toward the elevators instead. I was tired of bending to everyone else’s will. All this time, I’d been worrying about Riley, Jazmin, Nick, my mother, and now Stella. It was time for me to go upstairs, lie down, and order an extravagant meal from room service now that my stomach was feeling a bit better. Unfortunately, as soon as the elevator cleared out and I stepped inside, Stella decided to stop playing tag and join me.
“What are you doing?” I grumbled. “Because I refuse to chase you all over the hotel.”
“That woman is not on your side,” Stella said. She refused to look at me, instead staring at the button panel with unwarranted intensity. “You need to stay as far away from her as possible.”
“Who, Gina?” I asked. “You’re kidding, right? She’s a nice old lady. What’s she going to do to me?”
Stella, her expression hard and fragile like glass, fixed her eyeliner above my head. “Trust me.”
“I’m getting sick of all these cryptic clues,” I scolded her. “Odette did the same crap at King and Queens, but at least she had a reason. No one’s stopping you from filling me in.”
“It’s not that simple,” Stella said in a hushed undertone, as if we weren’t alone and she wasn’t dead. “I’m not all powerful. I have constraints too, just like Odette.”
“Constraints.” I mulled the word over, wondering what it could mean. Odette hadn’t been able to tell me too much because the other ghosts at King and Queens would punish her for it. Did Stella suffer from a similar fate? “Where is Odette anyway? I got used to her. She was less abrasive than you are.”
Stella’s mind had wandered. That was evident in the glaze of her eyes. The elevator reached the twentieth floor and the doors opened, but Stella remained in place and I couldn’t find the heart to leave her when she looked so forlorn.
“Stella?” I said softly. “Is something wrong? Other than the obvious, of course.”
“Odette is stuck,” she whispered. The moisture in her stunning blue eyes caught the overhead lights of the elevator. “At King and Queens with the rest of them. She’s not safe.”
“The other ghosts?” I asked. The elevator doors tried to close, bu
t I hit the button to keep them open. “You mean they didn’t vanish when King and Queens burned down?”
“Trapped energy doesn’t simply vanish,” Stella snapped, reverting to her usual brusque tone. “If anything, the fire strengthened the spirits there. They thrive in the shadows and destruction, growing stronger each day. And you’re here watching birds and ordering room service instead of doing something about it.”
The accusation drove me from the elevator and into the hall. “Have you been paying attention? I’ve been juggling a lot the past few days. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I look and feel like I’m about to drop dead myself. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
At the door to the suite, Stella examined me from head to toe. “You do look absolutely dreadful, but I’ve already given you the information you need on that front. Odette has been telling you the same thing since the two of you met. Balance your energy. Come to terms with your past. All that bottled-up emotion is throwing your physical body out of whack.”
I swiped the key card. “Are you sure that’s it? When Odette was around, it was like my whole body was on fire, but it faded if I concentrated hard enough. This feels different. I feel like I’m coming down with pneumonia. It gets worse. Then it gets a little better. Then it gets worse again. Maybe the stress is getting to me.”
Stella pursed her lips.
“What?” I asked. “You have another idea?”
“No,” she said. “No, it can’t be.”
The key reader flashed green. I pushed the door open.
“In the past few weeks, I’ve learned not to say that,” I informed Stella.
She opened her mouth to answer, but when she looked inside the suite, she immediately vanished. When I matched her gaze, I understood why. Jazmin had finally returned from her trip to the clinic, but she wasn’t alone. Lourdes Calvo sat right next to her. They were all buddied up—sharing a throw blanket and everything—as they examined the screen of my laptop. From here, I could see that they were manipulating something on my YouTube channel: the channel I’d been locked out of that very morning.
